1989 is the fifth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, released on October 27, 2014 through Big Machine Records. Swift began composing the album following the release of her previous studio effort, Red (2012). Over the course of the two-year songwriting period, she collaborated with producers Max Martin and Shellback—Martin served as the album's executive producer alongside Swift. The album's title was named after the singer's birth year and its music was inspired by the pop music of the 1980s.

The album represents a departure from the country music of Swift's previous albums, and is described by the singer as her "first documented official pop album."[4] Contrasting her previous endeavors, the production of 1989 consists of drum programming, synthesizers, pulsating bass, processed backing vocals, and guitars. 1989 received generally positive reviews from contemporary music critics and it was ranked as one of the best albums of 2014 by several publications, including Billboard, Time, and Rolling Stone.

Background

Swift released her fourth studio album, Red, on October 22, 2012.[6] The album marked a change in Swift's musical style with the experimentation of heartland rock, dubstep and dance-pop.[7][8]Red was a commercial success and debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 with first-week sales of 1.21 million copies. This was the highest opening sales in a decade and ultimately made Swift the first woman to have two albums sell more than a million copies in their first week.[9] To promote the album Swift, embarked on the North American leg of her Red Tour, which ran from March to September 2013. The tour visited arenas and stadiums in North America, New Zealand, Australia, England, Germany and Asia.[10] In the Red era, Swift's romantic life became the subject of intense media scrutiny. Gawker remarked that Swift had dated "every man in the universe."[11]The New York Times asserted that her "dating history has begun to stir what feels like the beginning of a backlash" and questioned whether Swift was in the midst of a "quarter-life crisis."[12] During both the Red Tour and media scrutiny, Swift began work on 1989.[13]

Writing and recording

Following the release of her fourth studio album, Red, and its corresponding tour, Swift was "six months deep in the songwriting process."[13] In November 2013, the singer told Billboard: "There are probably seven or eight [songs] that I know I want on the record. It's already evolved into a new sound, and that's all I wanted."[14] During the promotion for the album, Swift said that she "woke up every single day not wanting, but needing to make a new style of music than I'd ever made before".[15] Swift explained in a January 2015 interview that she was "very proud" that she made a pop album because she "wanted to", and "there was no-one else influencing" her.[16] Recording sessions for the album took place at Conway Studios in Los Angeles, Jungle City Studios in New York, Lamby's House Studios in Brooklyn, MXM Studios in Stockholm, Sweden; Pain in the Art Studio in Nashville, Studio Elevator Nobody in Göteborg, Sweden and The Hideaway Studio.[17]

In February 2014, Swift confirmed she was again working with Martin and Shellback, with whom she had collaborated for the writing of three songs on Red. This time, they were writing "a lot more than three songs together."[18]
Swift's friend Jack Antonoff,[19] with whom Swift had previously collaborated, and Ryan Tedder[20] also worked on the album. Antonoff co-wrote and co-produced the songs "Out of the Woods", "I Wish You Would" and "You Are in Love", with the third track only appearing on the United States Target, Target Canada, and international deluxe version. The band Fine Young Cannibals was identified as an influence, by both Swift and Antonoff; the latter explained in September 2014:

The moment when we shifted from friendship into working together was when we were talking about the snare drum on Fine Young Cannibals' "She Drives Me Crazy" ... Taylor [Swift] brought it up first, and I was like, "Holy shit, you're not going to believe this: I just sampled that snare in a track." I played her one second of it on my iPhone, and she was like, "Send me that track."[19]

The track that Antonoff recorded on his iPhone eventually became "I Wish You Would", while Swift believes that the Fine Young Cannibals song is "timeless".[19] Tedder co-wrote and co-produced two songs with Swift—"I Know Places" and "Welcome to New York"—after she contacted Tedder through a smartphone voice memo. The pair scheduled studio time on the day after Tedder received the memo and recorded "I Know Places".[21]

In September 2014, Swift told Rolling Stone that one of the songs on the album was taken "straight from the pages of my journal"; although the name of the song is unknown, Swift mentioned "Out of the Woods" as part of her interview response. In regard to "Out of the Woods", Antonoff said: "Part of it reads like a diary, and parts of it read like something 100,000 people should be screaming all together. It's got these very big lines that everybody can relate to, which are given weight by her being really honest about personal things."[19] "Out of the Woods" marked the first time that Swift had written a song over an existing track—Antonoff sent an early version of the song to Swift, who then added vocals and lyrics within a 30-minute time frame.[22]

Music and lyrics

I have a few artists in the late eighties who I think made the most incredible, bold, risky decisions as far as pop music goes. They were really ahead of their time, like Annie Lennox and what Madonna was doing in the late eighties. "Like a Prayer" is legitimately one of the greatest pop songs of all time.

– Swift speaking about her inspiration for the album during an interview with Kiss FM.[23]

Swift first announced the album on August 18, 2014. She described it as her "first documented, official pop album", stating that she was inspired by late 1980s pop during the recording period.[4] Musically, 1989 is a synthpop and dance-pop album[2][3] that features more electronic production than her previous releases. The album contains drum programming and synthesizers provided by Martin, and the production is backed by a pulsating bass (Yamaha DX7), processed backing vocals, and guitars, the latter of which provide "texture", as described by Jem Aswad of Billboard, who states that "an acoustic [guitar] is audible on just one song."[24]

Swift described 1989 as the most "sonically cohesive" studio album she has ever made.[15]
In an interview with Kiss FM (UK), Swift confirmed that the title was inspired by the music developed in her birth year, 1989, which she had re-discovered.[23]
In September, Swift told Rolling Stone magazine that Martin, New York City, her journal, Fine Young Cannibals and a sense of experimentation were the key influences underpinning the album. In relation to experimentation, Swift elaborated on the music of the 1980s:

It [the 1980s] was a very experimental time in pop music ... People realized songs didn't have to be this standard drums-guitar-bass-whatever. We can make a song with synths and a drum pad. We can do group vocals the entire song. We can do so many different things. And I think what you saw happening with music was also happening in our culture, where people were just wearing whatever crazy colors they wanted to, because why not? There just seemed to be this energy about endless opportunities, endless possibilities, endless ways you could live your life. And so with this record, I thought, "There are no rules to this. I don't need to use the same musicians I've used, or the same band, or the same producers, or the same formula. I can make whatever record I want."[19]

Musically, 1989 was influenced by some of Swift's favorite 1980s pop acts, including Annie Lennox, Phil Collins and "'Like a Prayer'-era Madonna".[25] The songwriter explained in an October 2014 television interview that, in terms of lyrics, she was inspired by the process of self-discovery that occurred during the two years prior to the release of 1989.[26] Her songwriting was described as "unmistakably Swift", by Aswad, who noted Swift's "polysyllabic melodies and playful/-provocative lyrics". However, Aswad noted that Martin and other key collaborators helped Swift's lyrics become more "seasoned and subtle ... than in the past." The album's lyrical content, in accordance with Swift's signature style, is concerned with love and relationships, with an emphasis placed upon the complexities of both.[24] Swift said her lyrical inspiration behind 1989 was John Hughes films.[27]

"Blank Space" is a minimalist electropop song.[31] Many critics compared the song, which parodies Swift's recent exposure in the media—she was portrayed as "an overly attached man-eater who dates for songwriting material"—to the music of fellow pop artist Lorde.[32] "Style" has been described as a pop rock, electropop,[33]post-disco,[34] and funk-pop[35] song. NME wrote, "so '80s-indebted with its thick piano-house and uplifting 'Take me home' coda, echoes the retro-modern atmosphere conjured by the slinky cool of Electric Youth and Blood Orange.[36]

"Out of the Woods" is a synthpop song, and the first song for which Swift wrote lyrics to a pre-existing track.[22] Martin produced Swift's vocals for the song.[37] Featuring heavy synths and percussion, Antonoff described that the song is given an arrangement that combines both 1980s and modern elements. A Yamaha DX7 is used for the 1980s-tinged sounds apparent on most parts of the song, but they are countered with the Minimoog Voyager during the chorus sections.[22] "All You Had to Do Was Stay" was inspired by a dream of Swift's rather than a real-life romance. Swift recalled: "I was trying to talk to someone important ... And that's all that would come out of my mouth. I woke up so weirded out!"[38] "Shake It Off" is an uptempo pop song with a sound that is in stark contrast to Swift's previous releases,[39] and consists of a central saxophone line.[40] Jason Lipshutz from Billboard compared the song's melody to that of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis' song "Thrift Shop" (2012).[41] Lyrically, the song is dedicated to Swift's detractors. Swift explained that, "I've learned a pretty tough lesson that people can say whatever they want about us at any time, and we cannot control that. The only thing we can control is our reaction to that."[42]

"I Wish You Would" is another song that Swift wrote with Antonoff. Like "Out of the Woods", the song was written to a track Antonoff sampled and lyrically describes a boy who "[drives] past an ex-girlfriend's house and he thinks she hates him but she's still in love with him."[citation needed][43] The electropop song "Bad Blood" was written about an unnamed female musical artist; Swift says the artist attempted to sabotage one of her concert tours by hiring people who worked for her.[44] "Wildest Dreams" is the ninth song in the album. The song features a recording of Swift's own heartbeat which serves as the beat of the song. "How You Get the Girl" was described by Swift as an "instruction manual for men". She told Us Weekly, "It's written for a guy who has broken up with his girlfriend, then wants her back after six months," and added, "but it's not going to be as simple as sending a text like, 'Sup? Miss you.'"[38] "This Love" was originally a poem Swift wrote in late 2013 which evolved into the song.[45] "I Know Places" features imagery of foxes representing Swift and her lover being pursued by "hunters", the media. Swift has once said her spirit animal is a fox for the same reason.[46] "Clean" describes Swift ridding herself of a metaphorical addiction; it is interpreted as the singer casting off relationships in favor of self-enlightenment.[47]

The deluxe version of the album, available in Target stores in the US and through iTunes distribution internationally, features the following three additional tracks: "Wonderland", "You Are in Love", and "New Romantics", plus three voice memos describing the production of "Blank Space", "I Wish You Would", and "I Know Places".[48]
As with Swift's previous albums, each song on the standard album is accompanied by a short "secret message", encoded in capitalized or decapitalized letters within the album's lyric book. In 1989, the secret messages, each corresponding to a track on the album, form a thirteen-sentence story:

We begin our story in New York. There once was a girl known by everyone and no one. Her heart belonged to someone who couldn't stay. They loved each other recklessly. They paid the price. She danced to forget him. He drove past her street each night. She made friends and enemies. He only saw her in his dreams. Then one day he came back. Timing is a funny thing. And everyone was watching. She lost him but she found herself and somehow that was everything.[49]

"Wonderland" makes frequent allusions to the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland,[43] and is known for a "bass drop" in the first chorus.[50] It was released as a promotional single in the US on February 17, 2015; the other two bonus tracks are also planned to become singles. "You Are in Love" describes a happy, if surreal, relationship. "New Romantics" is the final song on the deluxe album; its name references the New Romanticism movement.[43][51] Thematically, the song resembles "Shake It Off", as it addresses popular criticism of Swift and her fans.[52]

Singles

On August 18, 2014, Swift premiered the album's lead single, "Shake It Off", which was cowritten with Martin and Shellback, and produced by Martin and Shellback. The music video, directed by Mark Romanek, was also premiered during the live stream. It features professional dancers, Swift, and several fans picked from Instagram, Twitter, and fan letters she received.[4] The song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and remained for four weeks.[53]

On October 21, 2014, Swift accidentally released the track "Track 3", under the album's name, due to an iTunes glitch. The track, which consisted of 8 seconds of white noise, topped the Canadian iTunes chart. It was subsequently removed.[54][55][56][57]

Swift's second single from 1989, "Blank Space", appeared on the Mainstream Top 40, Rhythmic Top 40, and Hot AC radio on November 10.[58] The music video for the song was leaked on the same day by Yahoo!, after which time Swift released the video on Vevo—Yahoo! pulled their version offline after Swift's prompt response.[59] "Blank Space" went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed for seven weeks, making Swift's longest chart-leader to date.[60]

"Style" was released as the third single from 1989 on February 9, 2015 according to the Big Machine sister/affiliate label Republic Records, which used the term "impacts" to signify the Hot AC release.[61][62] The music video for the track was released on February 13, 2015, featuring Swift in the woods and having various flashbacks about her and her boyfriend, played by Dominic Sherwood.[63] "Style" peaked at number six on the Billboard Hot 100.[64]

"Wildest Dreams" was released as the fifth single from 1989.[69] A slight remix of the song officially impacted Adult Contemporary radio on August 31, 2015[70] and Mainstream radio on September 1, 2015.[71] The music video for the song premiered at the 2015 MTV VMA's on August 30, 2015, and was directed by Joseph Kahn.[72] "Wildest Dreams" peaked at number five on the Billboard Hot 100.[73]

Release

Swift began teasing an announcement in August 2014. On August 4, she posted a video on Instagram in which she pushes the number 18 in an elevator.[80] On August 6, she tweeted an image of the time "5:00", and the next day a screenshot from a Yahoo! homepage.[81] She then unveiled the album cover, a Polaroid picture with "T. S. 1989" written underneath.[4]

Promotion

Singles

The first single from the album, "Shake It Off", was revealed during a worldwide live video stream hosted by Swift in partnership with Yahoo! on August 18—Swift said during the stream that she was told it was the first-ever global stream of its kind. A live studio audience was also present, as Swift spoke about 1989 and the two-year writing and recording process.[15] An audio stream of the album was made available in on the same date as the worldwide video stream, and consumers could pre-order 1989 after the stream was taken down.[4]
As part of the 1989 promotional campaign the next month, Swift invited fans to secret album-listening sessions, called the "1989 Secret Sessions", at her houses in New York, Nashville, Los Angeles and Rhode Island, as well as in her hotel room in London. Swift conceived of the idea and the L.A. session was held on September 22.[82]

The album was released on October 27, 2014 in the US, with a standard 13-track edition released to retailers[4] and digital download sites,[83] while a deluxe edition, including three extra songs and three voice memos, was released exclusively by Target in the United States and Canada.[84]
In Germany and the United Kingdom, the album was also released to wide retail and digital download—both were the standard 13-track edition—while the deluxe edition was released on the same day.[85][86][87][88][89][90][91][92][excessive citations] However, the album leaked online a few days before its official release.[93]
In line with the album's visual theme, and to boost CD sales, Big Machine decided to include 13 of 65 collectible printed "polaroids" with every physical copy of 1989. Scott Borchetta, the record label's founder, claims that the idea came from Swift and her team.[94] The ploy reportedly boosted Polaroid Corporation's ailing sales.[95]

In order to promote the album, Swift released "Out of the Woods" as a countdown single from the album on October 14, 2014.[96] The following week, "Welcome to New York" was released as the second countdown single on October 20, 2014.[97] On October 28, Starbucks announced "This Love" as their Pick of the Week, offering a free iTunes download to customers.[citation needed]

Deluxe edition

On February 17, 2015, Swift announced that the deluxe edition songs of 1989, which were released to Target and internationally last October, will be making its way to the Apple retailer, one song at a time.[98] "Wonderland" was released on the same day, via iTunes Stores, as a digital download single from the deluxe edition of the album.[99] "You Are in Love" and "New Romantics" joined the track on the platform on February 24, 2015 and March 4, 2015, respectively.[98]

At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, it received an average score of 76 based on 29 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[118] Writing for Rolling Stone, Rob Sheffield wrote, "Deeply weird, feverishly emotional, wildly enthusiastic, 1989 sounds exactly like Taylor Swift, even when it sounds like nothing she's ever tried before."[115] In The Daily Telegraph, Neil McCormick said, "The immediate impression is slick; candyfloss cheerleading, full of American fizz."[119]Alexis Petridis from The Guardian says the album "deals in undeniable melodies and huge, perfectly turned choruses and nagging hooks. Its sound is a lovingly done reboot of the kind of late 80s MTV pop-rock exemplified by Jane Wiedlin's Rush Hour."[112] Jon Caramanica from The New York Times remarked that Swift was "making pop with almost no contemporary references" and "aiming somewhere even higher, a mode of timelessness that few true pop stars even bother aspiring to."[120]

Mikael Wood was less enthusiastic in his review for the Los Angeles Times, calling 1989 "a deeply catchy, sleekly-produced pop record with the slightly juiceless quality of an authorized biography, a would-be tell-all bleached of the detailed insight [Swift]'s trained us to expect from her."[113] Writing for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine accused Swift of being aloof in celebrating temporal pop subjects on what he felt was an attempt to record "a sparkling soundtrack to an aspirational lifestyle".[108]

1989 was included in several year-end lists. Rolling Stone ranked the album at number ten on their Best of 2015 list, saying "America's sweetheart has been writing perfect pop tunes since the day she hit Nashville."[129] Jon Caramanica of The New York Times ranked 1989 at number seven on his top ten albums list. Caramanica praised her country to pop transition, saying "This album's biggest accomplishment is that in shifting from making the sort of music no one had really made before to making the sort of music many have made, Ms. Swift retained her self."[130] It was the best album of the year for Billboard, commenting "Many artists have attempted the sea change that Swift accomplished on 1989, but few have rendered that vision as successfully."[131]Pitchfork Media placed the album 31 on its year-end list.[132]Time staff ranked the album at number four on their "Top 10 Best Albums" of 2014, concluding "Country's premiere princess is now pop's heir apparent."[133] For Complex it was the eighth best album of 2014, stating "This is Swift the risk-taker, the new arrival who's brought with her a suitcase, a willingness to experiment, and a bit of confidence to do it her way."[134]

Commercial performance

In the United States, 1989 sold 1,287,000 copies during its first week of release, debuting atop the Billboard 200 chart. Additional copies were sold for US$0.99 through a Microsoft promotion but were not included in the total due to a Nielsen SoundScan policy of not including sales priced under $3.99 within the first four weeks of a release.[139] The album's performance broke Swift's own personal sales record, and became the 19th album to sell over one million copies in a single week since SoundScan began tracking sales in 1991. It was the seventh-highest sales week in history, and the highest sales week since 2002, when Eminem's The Eminem Show sold 1.3 million units. Swift also became the first artist to release three albums that sold one million or more copies within a single week.[140]

The album remained at the top spot of the Billboard 200 during the second and third week of release, surpassing 2 million copies sold.[141][142][143] In its fourth week, the album was replaced by One Direction's Four,[144] but returned to number one again for the fourth time in its fifth week.[145] The album sold 200,000 or more copies in each of the 10 successive weeks after release, a feat last achieved by Usher's Confessions in 2004. 1989 eventually sold over 3,660,000 copies in 2014 and was the best-selling album in the US that year, ahead of Coldplay's Ghost Stories (745,000 copies).[146][147][148][149]

During the week ending January 18, 2015, the album sales surpassed 4 million copies.[150][151]1989 is the first album to sell four million copies in the US since the week ending February 23, 2014, when Red crossed the four-million mark.[152] By early February 2015, in its 15th week of release, 1989 had topped the US chart for eleven non-consecutive weeks, establishing Swift as the female artist with the second-highest number of total weeks, with 35 weeks, in the number-one Billboard position for all of her albums—Whitney Houston's record total of 46 weeks at number one remained intact.[149][153] It spent a total of 24 consecutive weeks inside the top five of the Billboard 200, making it one of the nine albums to spend their first 24 weeks in the top five since 1963.[154] On March 13, 2015, Billboard announced that 1989 had outsold both of her previous two albums in the US after 19 weeks of release.[155] On October 27, 2015, the album became the fifth album to spend its first year of release in the top 10 of the Billboard 200.[156] It remained in the top 10 of the Billboard 200 until its 54th week of release.[157] As of January 2018, 1989 has sold 6.11 million copies in the US.[158]

In Canada, the album debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, selling 107,000 copies.[159] In its second week, the album remained at number one with sales of 37,000, bringing its two-week sales total to 144,000 copies.[160] It went on to become Canada's best-selling album of the year, having sold 314,000 copies.[161] In the UK, 1989 sold 90,000 in its first week and debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart. It became her second number-one album in the UK, following Red (2012), and was the fastest-selling female solo album in 2014.[162] To date, the album has sold 1.127 million copies in the UK.[163] As of October 2017, 1989 has sold 10.25 million copies worldwide.[164]

^"Czech Albums – Top 100". ČNS IFPI. Note: On the chart page, select 201444 on the field besides the word "Zobrazit", and then click over the word to retrieve the correct chart data. Retrieved November 4, 2014.

1.
Album
–
Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves

2.
Taylor Swift
–
Taylor Alison Swift is an American singer-songwriter. One of the most popular contemporary female recording artists, she is known for songs about her personal life. Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Swift moved to Nashville, Tennessee at age 14 to pursue a career in country music and she signed with the independent label Big Machine Records and became the youngest artist ever signed by the Sony/ATV Music publishing house. Her eponymous debut album in 2006 peaked at five on Billboard 200. The albums third single, Our Song, made her the youngest person to single-handedly write, Swifts second album, Fearless, was released in 2008. Buoyed by the pop success of the singles Love Story and You Belong with Me. The album won four Grammy Awards, with Swift becoming the youngest Album of the Year winner, Swift was the sole writer of her 2010 album, Speak Now. It debuted at one in the United States and the single Mean won two Grammy Awards. Her fourth album, Red, yielded the successful singles We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, with her fifth album, the pop-focused 1989, she became the first act to have three albums sell a million copies within one week in the United States. Its singles Shake It Off, Blank Space and Bad Blood reached number one in the US, Australia, the album received three Grammy Awards, and Swift became the first woman and fifth act overall to win Album of the Year twice. The 2015 eponymous concert tour for 1989 became one of highest-grossing of the decade, as a songwriter, Swift has received awards from the Nashville Songwriters Association and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Swift is one of the artists of all time, having sold more than 40 million albums—including 27.1 million in the US—and 130 million single downloads. She has appeared in Times 100 most influential people in the world, Forbes top-earning women in music, Forbes 100 most powerful women and she was the youngest woman to be included in the third of these and ranked first in Celebrity 100. Taylor Alison Swift was born on December 13,1989, in Reading and her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, was a financial advisor, and her mother, Andrea Gardner Swift, was a homemaker who worked previously as a mutual fund marketing executive. She has a brother named Austin. Swift spent the years of her life on a Christmas tree farm in Cumru Township. She attended preschool and kindergarten at the Alvernia Montessori School, run by Franciscan nuns, the family then moved to a rented house in the suburban town of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, where she attended Wyomissing Area Junior/Senior High School. At the age of nine, Swift became interested in musical theater and she also traveled regularly to New York City for vocal and acting lessons

3.
Pop music
–
Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions

4.
Dance-pop
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Dance-pop is a pop and dance subgenre that originated in the early 1980s. It is generally up-tempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable, the genre, on the whole, tends to be producer-driven, despite some notable exceptions. Dance-pop borrowed influences from other genres, which varied by producer, artist, such include contemporary R&B, house, trance, techno, new jack swing, funk, synthpop, electropop and some forms of europop. Dance-pop is a mainstream style of music and there have been numerous pop artists. As the term started to go out of fashion by the late 1970s to early 1980s, other terms were commonly used to describe disco-based music, such as post-disco, club. Dance-pop music emerged in the 1980s as a combination of dance and pop, or post-disco, Dance-pop music was usually created, composed and produced by record producers who would then hire singers to perform the songs. In the beginning of the 80s disco was an anathema to the mainstream pop, according to prominent Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Madonna had a huge role in popularizing dance music as mainstream music, utilizing her charisma, chutzpah and sex appeal. Erlewine claimed that Madonna launched dance-pop and set the standard for the genre for the two decades. The staff of Vice magazine stated that her debut album drew the blueprint for future dance-pop, in the 1980s dance-pop was closely aligned to other up-tempo electronic genres, such as Hi-NRG. Prominent producers in the 1980s included Stock, Aitken and Waterman, during the decade, dance-pop borrowed influences from funk, new jack swing, and contemporary R&B. Other prominent dance-pop artists and groups of the 1980s included the Pet Shop Boys, Mel and Kim, Samantha Fox, Debbie Gibson, by the 1990s, dance-pop had become a major genre in popular music. Several dance-pop groups and artists emerged during the 1990s, such as the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Jessica Simpson, Backstreet Boys, during the early 1990s, dance-pop borrowed influences from house music, as well as contemporary R&B and new jack swing. Additionally, also in 1998, Cher released a song called Believe which made usage of a technological innovation of the time. An audio processor and a form of pitch modification software, Auto-Tune is commonly used as a way to correct pitch, since the late 1990s, the use of Auto-Tune processing has become a common feature of dance-pop music. Celine Dion also released a dance-pop song Thats the Way It Is by the end of 1999 and it has a moderately slow tempo but an up-beat song. At the beginning of the 2000s, dance-pop music was still prominent, nonetheless, as R&B and hip hop became extremely popular from the early part of the decade onwards, dance-pop often borrowed a lot of its influences from urban music. Dance-pop stars from the 1980s and 1990s such as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Madonna, Janet Jackson, in Madonnas case, her album Music contained elements of Euro disco, especially the successful eponymous lead single. Britney Spears album Blackout contained influences of Euro disco, the mid-to-late 2000s saw the arrival of several new dance-pop artists, including Rihanna, Kesha, Lady Gaga and Katy Perry

5.
Synth-pop
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Synth-pop is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic, art rock, disco, and particularly the Krautrock of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s. In Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestras success opened the way for bands such as P-Model, Plastics. The development of polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI. This, its adoption by the acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV. Synth-pop is sometimes deployed interchangeably with electropop, but electropop may also denote a variant of synth-pop that places emphasis on a harder. In the late 1980s duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a style that was successful on the US dance-charts. Some artists and bands were criticised for gender bending, Synth-pop was defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, sometimes using them to replace all other instruments. Borthwick and Moy have described the genre as diverse but, many synth-pop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic progression to speak of. Early synth-pop has been described as eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing, using droning electronics with little change in inflection, common lyrical themes of synth-pop songs were isolation, urban anomie, and feelings of being emotionally cold and hollow. Synthesizers were increasingly used to imitate the conventional and clichéd sound of orchestras, thin, treble-dominant, synthesized melodies and simple drum programmes gave way to thick, and compressed production, and a more conventional drum sound. Lyrics were generally optimistic, dealing with more traditional subject matter for pop music such as romance, escapism. According to music writer Simon Reynolds, the hallmark of 1980s synth-pop was its emotional, at times operatic singers such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox. Because synthesizers removed the need for groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation. Later synth-pop saw a shift to a style influenced by other genres. Electronic musical synthesizers that could be used practically in a recording studio became available in the mid-1960s, the portable Minimoog, which allowed much easier use, particularly in live performance was widely adopted by progressive rock musicians such as Richard Wright of Pink Floyd and Rick Wakeman of Yes

6.
Big Machine Records
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Big Machine Records, LLC is an independent American record label specializing in country and pop artists. Big Machine is based on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee, the label was launched in September 2005 by former DreamWorks Records executive, Scott Borchetta, and initially became a joint venture between Borchetta and country singer Toby Keith. As of November 2014, the company consists of 88 employees—in the areas of music publishing, management. The business also oversees numerous imprints, including Valory Music, that are under Big Machine Label Group, among the artists signed to the label is Taylor Swift, whose most recent studio album,1989, was released in October 2014. Swifts father owns a stake in the record label, other artists include Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, and Rascal Flatts. Borchetta is originally from Los Angeles, Californias San Fernando Valley area, borchettas father, Mike Borchetta, worked in Nashville as a country promoter who courted radio stations with music he transported in the trunk of his car. Mike Borchetta was married to a country singer at the time. Borchetta did not leave Nashville after a 1981 visit, Borchetta worked in the mailroom of his fathers music company and eventually became a promotions staff member in 1991 for Universal’s MCA Records label. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Borchetta was a manager at MCA, choosing singles. After he was fired from MCA in 1997, Borchetta accepted a role at the Nashville division of DreamWorks Records, before he left DreamWorks, Borchetta approached Swift and her family after the musician performed at the Blue Bird Café in Nashville, TN. At the time, Borchetta had no infrastructure or financing, made an offer to Swift and her parents, Swift eventually recontacted Borchetta around two weeks later, telling him, I’m waiting for you. After he formed the label in 2005, Big Machine released Swifts first ever recording, Keith dropped his affiliation with the label in 2006, but he was reported as an equity holder in November 2014, alongside the Swift family and Borchetta. In October 2012, Borchetta told Rolling Stone magazine, Scott Swift owns three percent of Big Machine, by March 2009, Big Machine artist Danielle Peck had left the label. The departure occurred during a period for the overall U. S. music industry. Borchetta signed a deal with Clear Channel, which changed its name to iHeartMedia. Three years after the deal was signed, Borchetta said that the streams were very meaningful. On November 3,2014, Swift removed all but one of her songs from Spotify after indications of her disapproval of the streaming service emerged in July of the same year. Swift, statistically one of the worlds most popular artists at the time, had previously delayed the streaming of her 2012 album

7.
Record producer
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A record producer or music producer oversees and manages the sound recording and production of a band or performers music, which may range from recording one song to recording a lengthy concept album. A producer has many roles during the recording process, the roles of a producer vary. The producer may perform these roles himself, or help select the engineer, the producer may also pay session musicians and engineers and ensure that the entire project is completed within the record companies budget. A record producer or music producer has a broad role in overseeing and managing the recording. Producers also often take on an entrepreneurial role, with responsibility for the budget, schedules, contracts. In the 2010s, the industry has two kinds of producers with different roles, executive producer and music producer. Executive producers oversee project finances while music producers oversee the process of recording songs or albums. In most cases the producer is also a competent arranger, composer. The producer will also liaise with the engineer who concentrates on the technical aspects of recording. Noted producer Phil Ek described his role as the person who creatively guides or directs the process of making a record, indeed, in Bollywood music, the designation actually is music director. The music producers job is to create, shape, and mold a piece of music, at the beginning of record industry, producer role was technically limited to record, in one shot, artists performing live. The role of producers changed progressively over the 1950s and 1960s due to technological developments, the development of multitrack recording caused a major change in the recording process. Before multitracking, all the elements of a song had to be performed simultaneously, all of these singers and musicians had to be assembled in a large studio and the performance had to be recorded. As well, for a song that used 20 instruments, it was no longer necessary to get all the players in the studio at the same time. Examples include the rock sound effects of the 1960s, e. g. playing back the sound of recorded instruments backwards or clanging the tape to produce unique sound effects. These new instruments were electric or electronic, and thus they used instrument amplifiers, new technologies like multitracking changed the goal of recording, A producer could blend together multiple takes and edit together different sections to create the desired sound. For example, in jazz fusion Bandleader-composer Miles Davis album Bitches Brew, producers like Phil Spector and George Martin were soon creating recordings that were, in practical terms, almost impossible to realise in live performance. Producers became creative figures in the studio, other examples of such engineers includes Joe Meek, Teo Macero, Brian Wilson, and Biddu

8.
Max Martin
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Karl Martin Sandberg, better known as Max Martin, is a Swedish songwriter, record producer and singer. He rose to prominence in the half of the 1990s after making a string of major hits for artists such as the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears. Some of his hits include I Want It That Way. Baby One More Time. Martin is the songwriter with the third-most number one singles on the chart, behind only Paul McCartney, in 2016, Martin won the ASCAP Songwriter of the Year award for the sixth consecutive year and for the ninth time in his career. In early 2013 his single sales were tallied by The Hollywood Reporter to be at over 135 million, Sandberg was born in Stockholm, and grew up in Stenhamra, Ekerö Municipality, a suburb of Stockholm. As a child, Martin was a student of Swedens public music-education program, other alumni of the program include Andreas Carlsson, Rami Yacoub, and Anders Bagge, each of whom boasts a discography nearly as long and successful as Martins. As a teenager he sang in a variety of bands before joining a glam-style metal band called Its Alive in 1985 as their singer and its Alive were formed by ex-LAZY members Per Aldeheim and Kim Björkgren on guitars, and John Rosth who had been a member of Lineout. Martin eventually dropped out of school to pursue a career in music with his band under the nickname Martin White. In 1988 they participated in the national championships and played as the in-house band at a disco in Cyprus. The band got a breakthrough in 1991, as Dave Constable of Megarock Records offered them to make a demo-record, the later debut album was originally pressed in 1,000 copies and later on given away as a free cover tape in the UK by the Metal Forces magazine. The decision to focus on a music career paid off as they landed a deal on producer Denniz PoPs label Cheiron Records. After recording their second album Earthquake Visions, they released three singles in conjunction with the record and toured through Europe in 1994 supporting Kingdom Come, Earthquake Visions eventually sold a disappointing 30,000 copies, despite being released in as many as 30 countries. More importantly though, Martin also began collaborating on songs with PoP, recognizing a talent for writing pop songs in the young rocker, PoP renamed his new protégé Max Martin and eventually became Martins mentor. I didnt even know what a producer did, I spent two years–day and night–in that studio trying to learn what the hell was going on, – Max Martin,19 March 2001. In 1993, Martin was hired by Cheiron Studios and spent some time learning the basics and they both worked on Ace of Bases second album, The Bridge, shortly thereafter, as well as on albums by 3T, Army of Lovers and Leila K. To date, The Bridge has sold more than six million copies worldwide, when Martin eventually left his band Its Alive in late 1995, he was replaced by Anders Jansson. In 1995, the Cheiron Studios was hired by Zomba to work on Backstreet Boys self-titled debut album Backstreet Boys, Zomba became the main working partner since the success in 1995. The album was not released in the U. S. until 1997 and this led to the Backstreet Boys being relaunched in their home country later on, this time more successfully

9.
Jack Antonoff
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Jack Michael Antonoff is an American musician, singer and songwriter. He is best known as the singer and songwriter of Bleachers. He was previously the lead singer-songwriter of the band Steel Train, Antonoff has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and has won three Grammy Awards. Jack also started his own festival, Shadow of The City. Antonoff was born in Bergenfield, New Jersey, the son of Shira and Rick Antonoff, and he is the younger brother of fashion designer Rachel Antonoff. His younger sister, Sarah, died of cancer at the age of 13 when Antonoff was a senior in high school. Antonoff grew up in New Milford, New Jersey, and Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, for high school, he and his sister commuted to New York City, New York, to attend the Professional Childrens School. During his sophomore year of school, he and several friends from elementary school formed a punk rock band called Outline. When they were 15, Antonoff and his Outline bandmate used a DIY guide to book shows in numerous states, including Florida and Texas, and borrowed Antonoffs parents minivan to travel in. During the tour, Outline played in such as anarchist bookstores. Antonoff explained in 2014, Half the time no one would show up or the equipment would be too fucked up to play, but thats when I fell in love with touring. The band lasted from 1998 to 2002, in 2002, Antonoff and friend, Scott Irby-Ranniar, formed the band Steel Train—Antonoff was the lead singer, and they recruited drummer Matthias Gruber. The band then convinced two of their friends from the band Random Task, Evan Winiker and Matthew Goldman, to out of college to join the new band. Steel Train secured a deal with Drive-Thru Records. In 2008, Nate Ruess asked Antonoff to join him and Andrew Dost in a new band, Antonoff was already well acquainted with Ruess and Dost, as their former bands had all toured together. The new band released its album, Aim and Ignite. Fun. s second album, Some Nights, produced the bands first number-one hit single, the song was cowritten by Antonoff with Ruess, Dost, and Jeff Bhasker. The HBO series, Girls, which stars the shows creator Lena Dunham, released its Volume 1 soundtrack, song Sight of the Sun, in January 2013

10.
Imogen Heap
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Imogen Jennifer Heap is an English singer-songwriter and composer. She is known for her work as part of the musical duo Frou Frou and her albums, which she writes, produces. She has produced four solo albums, in 2010 she received the British Academys Ivor Novello Award for International Achievement. Publishing administrator Downtown Music Publishing represents the works of Imogen Heap, Imogen Jennifer Heap was born in the London Borough of Havering. She played music from an age, becoming classically trained in several instruments including piano, cello. She attended Friends School, a private, Quaker-run boarding school in Saffron Walden, Heaps mother and her father separated when she was twelve. By the age of thirteen, she had writing songs. Heap did not get well with the music teacher at her boarding school, so she principally taught herself sequencing, music engineering, sampling. She also taught herself to play the guitar and drums, after school, she went on to study at the BRIT School for Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, South London. After being introduced to Nik Kershaw by his manager Mickey Modern, Heap, consequently, a few months later she signed her first record contract at eighteen to independent record label Almo Sounds. Modern and Mark Wood formed Modernwood Management, and managed Heap until 2006, Wood continues to manage the artist via his new company, Radius Music. During 1996, Heap began working with a pop band called Acacia. While never a member of the band, Heap was a guest vocalist and contributed to various Acacia single. One Acacia song, Maddening Shroud, would later be covered by Frou Frou, Modern asked Dennis Arnold to place Heap in the line up in the 1996 Princes Trust Concert in Hyde Park, London organized by Harvey Goldsmith. Heap performed four songs between sets by The Who and Eric Clapton, promotion for the record included a tour of America and performances around Europe. Three singles were released in the UK, Getting Scared, Shine. Oh Me, Oh My was sent to US radio stations in place of Shine, Heaps early success was soon replaced by problems. Almo Sounds cut funding for UK promotion and gave Heap a deadline to deliver songs for her second album, upon delivery of the songs, she was told that they lacked hit potential

11.
Greg Kurstin
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Gregory Allen Greg Kurstin is an American record producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Described as the consummate DIY writer and producer, Kurstin has been associated with releases which have sold more than 60 million albums worldwide. He has been nominated for 10 Grammy Awards, including Producer of the Year in 2010 and 2014, in addition to three other Grammys, Kurstin won Producer of the Year in 2017. Kurstin co-wrote, produced and played most of the instruments on the record-breaking 2015 Adele single, among others, he has worked with Sia, Beck, Kelly Clarkson, Ellie Goulding, Pink, the Shins, Tegan and Sara, and Lily Allen. He often plays guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, and engineers, an exceptionally accomplished musician, Kurstin began his career as a jazz pianist and later co-founded Geggy Tah. He has collaborated with Inara George in The Bird and the Bee since 2004, Kurstin was born and grew up in Los Angeles, California. He started playing piano at age 5, soon after, he picked up guitar, Kurstin joined his first band at the age of 11, and co-wrote Crunchy Water, the b-side to classmate Dweezil Zappas My Mother Is a Space Cadet at 12. In high school, Kurstin focused on jazz piano, after graduation, he moved to New York to study with Charles Mingus pianist Jaki Byard at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. In addition to coursework, as a student Kurstin played with prominent jazz artists including Bobby Hutcherson, George Coleman and he returned to Los Angeles to finish his degree, and graduated from the California School of the Arts with a BFA in 1992. In a 2013 interview, Kurstin said that his education in jazz had played a role in his pop success. “It’s still something I carry over into my pop music work, it’s really important to me that the notes I’m choosing strike the right emotional chord. ”Kurstin continued to perform with Hutcherson, Coleman, McPherson and others following his graduation. In 1994, he formed Geggy Tah with Tommy Jordan, whom he had met at an LA jam, a friend passed a demo they recorded on to David Byrne, who signed them to his label, Luaka Bop. They incorporate so many disparate elements into their sound that one senses a new sensibility afoot, in 1996 the band released Sacred Cow. It included the song Whoever You Are, which became a hit in 2001, as the song ascended the charts, Geggy Tah released their final album, Into the Oh. In addition to playing with Geggy Tah, Kurstin did session work, one-offs and tours with artists including Beck, Ben Harper, in 2001, he released an album under the name Action Figure Party on the Verve-affiliated label Blue Thumb Records. Flea, Sean Lennon, Soul Coughings Yuval Gabay as well as musicians who performed with Beck, Air, Gil-Scott Heron, Kurstin signed a worldwide publishing deal with EMI in 2002. While he had written songs since the age of 12, he intensified his efforts, working day and night. In addition to writing on his own, he collaborated with songwriters and artists including Sia, in 2004, Kurstin was introduced to singer Inara George by a mutual friend, Mike Andrews

12.
Shellback (record producer)
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Karl Johan Schuster, known professionally as Shellback, is a Swedish songwriter, record producer, and musician. Shellback has collaborated with fellow producer Benny Blanco for Payphone and Moves like Jagger by Maroon 5 and he has also produced songs by himself, including Want U Back by Cher Lloyd and Animals by Maroon 5. Karl Johan Schuster was born and raised in Karlshamn, Sweden and he started out as a drummer in local indie rock bands in Karlshamn, as well as recording all instruments on the 2003 Meriah demo. In 2005 he also performed as a guest musician on the Faith album Sorg, at the age of 16, Schuster met Max Martin through their mutual friend Julius. By that time, according to an interview in the Swedish music magazine Stim-magasinet, Schusters taste in music was too cool for school, Julius kept sending Schusters indie rock/death metal demos to Martin, who became curious about what it would sound like if Schuster would make pop music. So in 2006 Martin invited Schuster to his studio in Stockholm to record a demo with him, among the first songs Schuster co-wrote with Martin are Pinks 2008 single So What and Britney Spears 2008 single If U Seek Amy. In 2012 Schuster won the STIM Platinum guitar prize, in 2014, Schuster produced Problem alongside Max Martin and Ilya. In 2015, Shellback collaborated with Swedish hardcore punk band Refused, Sandstrom sent him the versions of the songs Elektra and 366 that Refused had recorded with producer Nick Launay, and Shellback replied with his own arrangements of the two songs. Refused frontman Dennis Lyxzen explained in June 2015 that Shellbacks versions were far more Refused than our versions and were better than the Launay-produced versions. The two songs appear on Refuseds comeback album Freedom—Elektra was released as a single on April 27, 2015—which was released on the label Epitaph Records on June 26,2015. With Meriah. Turn Him Your Other Cheek With Blinded Colony Promo Demo Bedtime Prayers As a guest musician Faith - Sorg The following singles peaked inside the top ten on the Billboard Hot 100. Number-one singles So What 3 Raise Your Glass Moves like Jagger We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together One More Night Shake It Off Blank Space Bad Blood Cant Stop the Feeling

13.
Ryan Tedder
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Ryan Benjamin Tedder is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer. Tedders production and songwriting work has proven successful commercially, Apologize, written with and performed by his band OneRepublic, Bleeding Love, performed by Leona Lewis, and Halo, performed by Beyoncé, all made it to the list of best-selling singles of all time. In early 2014, Billboard named him The Undercover King of Pop, ryan Benjamin Tedder was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was raised by an family of missionaries and pastors in a Christian church. He began learning to play the piano at the age of three via the Suzuki method and his early interest in music was prompted by his musician father and school-teacher mother, who coaxed their young son into practicing piano in exchange for candy corn. Tedder started singing at the age of seven and he has commented, I sang for two hours a day every day of my life until I was eighteen. He continued to perform musically during his adolescence through church, school, in his senior year, he moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado. There he met and became friends with future OneRepublic bandmate Zach Filkins on their team at the Colorado Springs Christian School. He attended Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma and began to showcase his own material there, Tedder completed his college education and graduated from ORU in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Public Relations and Advertising. For years Tedder worked as a waiter, and also as an assistant at Pottery Barn, before securing an internship at DreamWorks SKG in Nashville. He produced demos for songwriters and labels, charging $300 to $400 a track, the prize for the winner was a music contract with Basss now-defunct management company, Free Lance Entertainment. The contestants performed live and were rated by judges and the audience. Tedder later revealed the record and publishing deal he was offered wasnt real and it was just a bunch of hype that didnt turn into anything. One year after winning the MTV competition, Tedder caught the attention of the hip hop producer Timbaland, Tedder commented that he was with Timbaland from 2002–2004 to develop as an artist while producing for other artists at the time. Tedders work crossed many genres and he has had many chart successes both in America and the United Kingdom with a number of artists. In June 2007, Tedder signed a publishing administration deal with Kobalt Music Publishing. The deal included Tedders new works and all songs not performed by OneRepublic, Tedder met producer Morten Schjolin in 2005, doing various collaborations for Tattoos second album. Tedder is the writer of the hit, Apologize, performed by his band OneRepublic

14.
Red (Taylor Swift album)
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Red is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22,2012, by Big Machine Records, as the follow-up to her studio album. Red touches on Swifts signature themes of love and heartbreak, however, from a mature perspective while exploring other themes such as fame. The album features collaborations with producers and guest artists such as Gary Lightbody of Snow Patrol, Swift completed The Red Tour in support of the album on June 12,2014, which became the highest-grossing tour of all time by a country artist, grossing over $150 million. Red was well received by critics and earned Swift Grammy Award nominations for Best Country Album and Album of the Year and it debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart, giving Swift her third consecutive chart topper in the US. Its first week sales of 1.21 million was the third biggest debut in history for a female artist and it made music history for claiming the biggest first week sales of all time by a country act, the record previously held by Garth Brooks. Red is just the 18th album in United States history to one million copies in a single week. Worldwide, Red has sold 6 million copies as of August 2014 and it was Swifts third consecutive top-seller and the second best-seller overall across all genres despite being out only for two months. This makes the fourth time Swift has an album ranked in the top three sellers. Red has been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America. All those emotions — spanning from intense love, intense frustration, jealousy, confusion, all of that — in my mind and you know, theres nothing in between. Theres nothing beige about any of those feelings, contrary to her previous self-written album Speak Now, Swift enlisted the help of several of her favorite songwriters. In an interview with MTV News, the revealed that the album is interesting because each song stands on its own. Its this patchwork quilt of different sounds and different emotions, and I dont think anything on the record sounds like We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together and she also previewed songs from the album on Good Morning America every Monday, beginning on September 24 until October 15. Swift performed on October 22 for the release, and the next day. According to the singer she had spent over two years with the process, writing and preparation for the album. Sarah Barlow shot the cover, which shows Swifts face. The standard and deluxe versions of the album were released on October 22,2012 in Italy, New Zealand, the United States, among others

15.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s

16.
Shake It Off
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Shake It Off is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her fifth album,1989. Written by Swift, Max Martin and Shellback, it is an uptempo dance-pop track considered to be a departure from Swifts earlier country pop music style, Shake It Off is the sixth track on the album and serves as the lead single. The song premiered during a Yahoo, Live stream session on August 18,2014, its music video was also released the same day. Several hours later, the song was available for digital download. The song won Favorite Song at the 2015 Peoples Choice Awards, according to Billboard, it is Swifts biggest Hot 100 hit, staying on the chart for 50 consecutive weeks. Swift began teasing about an announcement in August 2014, on August 4, she posted a video on Instagram in which she pushes the number 18 in an elevator. On August 6, she tweeted an image of the time 5,00 and she later confirmed on August 13,2014 on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon that a Yahoo. Live stream session would take place on August 18,2014 at 5pm, during the live stream, Swift announced her upcoming fifth album and premiered its lead single. Shake It Off was written by Swift, Martin and Shellback, produced by Martin and Shellback, the songs duration is three minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Swifts vocal range spans two octaves from G3 to G5, the songs arrangement features a saxophone. Jason Lipshutz from Billboard compared the songs melody to that of Macklemore & Ryan Lewis song Thrift Shop, a writer from Music Times likened the song to Pharrell Williams Happy. Writing for The Hollywood Reporter, Shirley Halperin labelled Shake It Off an uptempo version of Idina Menzels Let It Go, lyrically, the song is dedicated to Swifts detractors. She has discussed this, saying, I’ve learned a pretty tough lesson that people can say whatever they want about us at any time, the only thing we can control is our reaction to that. In an interview for Rolling Stone, Swift elaborated, Ive had every part of my life choices, my actions, my words, my body, my style. When you live your life under that kind of scrutiny, you can let it break you. And when one lands, you know how to deal with it, and I guess the way that I deal with it is to shake it off. Theres a song that I wrote a couple years ago called Mean, I said, Why you gotta be so mean. From kind of a perspective, which is how we all approach bullying or gossip when it happens to us for the first time

17.
Blank Space
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Blank Space is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift from her fifth studio album 1989. It was written by Swift, Max Martin and Shellback, the song was released to the radio by Republic Records on November 10,2014 as the albums second single, after Shake It Off and is the second track on the album. Musically, Blank Space is a song with lyrics that satirize the medias perception of Swift. Blank Space reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 following Shake It Off, Swift became the first woman in the Hot 100s 56-year history to succeed herself at the top spot. A critical success, it has also included in numerous year-end critics lists. The song has topped charts in Canada, South Africa. It also charted in the top 10 in numerous countries, such as Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, New Zealand, Spain, the songs accompanying music video was directed by Joseph Kahn and was shot over three days at Oheka Castle in Huntington, New York. The song received its first televised performance at the 2014 American Music Awards and as part of Taylor Swifts 1989 Secret Session with iHeartRadio on October 27,2014, in New York City. The song received nominations for the 58th Grammy Awards for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Blank Space is an electropop song that many critics compared to the works of fellow artist Lorde. It makes fun of Swifts recent exposure in the media about her dating life, the song was written by Swift along with Martin and Shellback, and produced by the latter two. Blank Space is composed in the key of F major and set in a 4/4 time signature at a tempo of 96 beats per minute. Swifts vocals range from A3 to D5, some listeners, including Swifts mother, misheard the lyrics of Blank Space, incorrectly hearing got a long list of ex-lovers as all the lonely Starbucks lovers. On Valentines Day 2015, Swift jokingly tweeted about the misheard lyrics, the New York Times noted the song as a clever metanarrative, commenting that This is Ms. Swift at her peak. Its funny and knowing, and serves to both her power and her primness. In a positive review, Robert Leedham of Drowned in Sound recognized it as Its the work of someone who finds success in misadventure, instead of wallowing in it. Los Angeles Times called it, A thrillingly vicious riff on Swifts reputation as a man-eater, a topic she also addresses in the albums jumpy lead single, Shake It Off. Got a long list of ex-lovers / Theyll tell you Im insane, she sings, her voice surging with newfound power, But Ive got a blank space, baby / And Ill write your name. It was included in several critics lists and was the second

18.
Style (Taylor Swift song)
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Style is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift and is the third track from her fifth album,1989. The song was written by Taylor Swift, Max Martin, Shellback and it was released to radio by Republic Records, in partnership with Swifts label Big Machine Records, on February 9,2015, as the albums third single, following Blank Space. It also made the top 40 in countries like the United Kingdom, Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, New Zealand, the accompanying music video was directed by Kyle Newman and premiered on February 13,2015. Style merely began as a track written by Ali Payami for himself. Ljungfelt, detailing the collaboration with Swift to the Grammys, stated that the track was not initially intended for anyone, after Payami agreed on the collaboration, Swift and Martin then proceeded to write new lyrics to the track. Style debuted as a snippet in a Target commercial to promote her album, in late December 2014, Big Machine Records head Scott Borchetta answered a fans question on an impromptu Q&A on social networking site Twitter. The fan asked, Whats Taylors next single, and Borchetta responded promptly that he was leaning towards Style—it was an obvious single choice, according to Billboard. In January 2015, Republic Records officially announced Style as Swifts third single from 1989, Swift explained the meaning and inspiration of the song to Ryan Seacrest during an interview on iHeartRadio in October 2014. I loved comparing these timeless visuals with a feeling that never goes out of style and its basically one of those relationships thats always a bit off. The two people are trying to forget each other, so, its like, All right, I heard you went off with her, and well, Ive done that, too. My previous albums have also been sort of like, I was right, you were wrong, you did this, it made me feel like this—a righteous sense of right and wrong in a relationship. What happens when you grow up is you realize the rules in a relationship are very blurred and that it very complicated very quickly. Style has a tempo of 95 beats per minute and is written in the key of D major, analyzing the songs structure, Voxs Kelsey McKinney compared the opening beat of the song to a call-and-response format. McKinney also noted that although the first half of the chorus plays D major and G major chords, jason Lipshutz from Billboard characterized Style as a James Dean-evoking pop rock song. Meanwhile, Los Angeles Timess Mikael Wood and The Observers Kitty Empire described the track as funk-pop, on behalf of Time, however, Sam Lansky detailed it as a disco anthem. PopMatters described Swift as on several styles that fit her like a cashmere-lined leather glove on Style and praised it as immaculate, almost impossibly ebullient. The Observer called it a percolating funk-pop number that satisfies on every level, the New York Times declared it the albums high mark and compared it to the original Miami Vice soundtrack. Now chose it as the top track from the album, the Los Angeles Times praised it as a sensual funk track

19.
Bad Blood (Taylor Swift song)
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Bad Blood is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, from her fifth studio album 1989. The remixed version of the song, featuring American rapper Kendrick Lamar, was released on May 17,2015, the album version was written by Swift, Max Martin, and Shellback, with Lamar writing his verses on the remixed version. The lyrics of Bad Blood describe the betrayal of a close friend, the album version is the eighth track of 1989. The song reached number one in Australia, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, Scotland, the accompanying music video was directed by Joseph Kahn and features an ensemble cast. The video previously held the 24-Hour Vevo Record with 20.1 million views and it won Video of the Year and Best Collaboration at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards. The song received a nomination for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance while its video won Best Music Video at the 58th Grammy Awards. A cover version of Bad Blood was released as the first promotional single from singer-songwriter Ryan Adams interpretation of Swifts 1989 album, Swift co-wrote Bad Blood about an undisclosed female musician. Swift says the artist attempted to sabotage one of her concert tours by hiring people who worked for her, publications such as Billboard, Rolling Stone, Time, and The Washington Post have speculated that Katy Perry is the subject of the song. Daniel DAddario for Time and Emily Yahr for The Washington Post noted parallels between Bad Bloods lyric If you live like that, you live with ghosts and Ghost, a song from Perrys 2013 album Prism. The album version of the song only contains Swift as the vocalist on verses, while the version features a re-worked instrumental. Jem Aswad of Billboard felt the song is reminiscent of Gwen Stefanis Hollaback Girl, the Guardians Kitty Empire wrote that the song faintly recalls Charli XCX with its stark beats. It is written in the key of G major, and runs at 88 bpm, the original version of Bad Blood received generally negative reviews from music critics. Many described the song as clichéd while also criticizing its writing, chorus, entertainment Weekly listed it as one of the best songs on the album. George Seabrook of The Edge awarded the four and half stars out of five. He praised the song for Lamar’s simple, brutally effective verses and acknowledged the collaboration as not just one more meaningless stunt collaboration, but a powerful new duo. Bad Blood first charted on the US Billboard Hot 100 for two weeks in November 2014 and January 2015 as a cut from 1989, peaking at number 78. It also became her 18th top 10 single and Lamars second and it dropped to number two the week after, being replaced by Wiz Khalifas See You Again, where it stayed for five consecutive weeks. It spent another five weeks at number four, before leaving the top ten of the chart after thirteen consecutive weeks in it on September 5,2015

20.
Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift song)
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Wildest Dreams is a song recorded by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift for her fifth studio album,1989. The song was released to radio by Big Machine Records on August 31,2015, Swift co-wrote the song with its producers Max Martin and Shellback. Musically, Wildest Dreams is a ballad with a prominent dream pop influence. Following the release of 1989, it charted in the United States, Canada, after its release as a single, it reached number five on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the fifth consecutive top-10 song from 1989 and Swifts 19th top-10 single on the chart. It also became her sixth chart topper on the Radio Songs chart, later a remix by Dutch DJ R3hab was released digitally in October 11,2015. Swift wrote the track with the producers, Max Martin. Reviewers compared the song to the works of Lana Del Rey, written in the key of A♭ major in Mixolydian mode and set in a common time signature, it has a relatively slow tempo of 69 beats per minute. Swifts vocal range spans from E♭3 to E♭5, the song samples With Every Heartbeat by Robyn and Kleerup. Corey Bealsey of PopMatters described it as Swift doing more or less a literal Lana Del Rey impression and managing it with a ventriloquists mastery to conjure Del Reys moody, sultry atmospherics. Club said that Swift even takes her voice down a few notches, ramping up the melodrama by way of Be My Babyish drums, Wildest Dreams paints the man as the victim, doomed to spend the rest of his life haunted by what hes carelessly lost. On the other hand, Craig Manning of AbsolutePunk dismissed the song as a bit disposable, jem Aswad of Billboard had a mixed reception about the Lana Del Rey similarities, saying that its hard to tell if the song is homage or parody. Wildest Dreams first entered the US Billboard Hot 100 at number 76 on the week ending November 15,2014 as a cut from 1989 and it reached number 12 the following week, and peaked at number 5 on November 7,2015. The songs peak position made Swift only the fourth artist to have at least one single peak at position of Billboards top 10 as the lead performer. It re-entered the Billboard Digital Songs chart at number 7 selling 83,000 copies, at the Billboard Radio Songs chart it debuted at number 26 with 43 million audience impression. It climbed to the top position of the Radio Songs chart on the week ending November 14,2015, on Billboards Dance/Mix Show Airplay chart, the single became Swifts first number one. The accompanying music video was directed by Joseph Kahn, who directed the music videos for the second. The music video was filmed in Africa and California, the video was first aired on television during the pre-show of the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards on August 30,2015. Scott Eastwood appeared in the video, in the video, Swift plays a fictional actress named Majorie Finn which is a reference to her grandmothers name, Majorie Finlay, and Scott Eastwood plays a fictional character named Robert Kingsley

21.
Out of the Woods (song)
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Out of the Woods is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The song was written by Swift and Jack Antonoff of fun and it was the second song to be officially released from her fifth studio album 1989, serving as the first promotional single on October 14,2014. It is the track on the album, after Style. Out of the Woods serves as the official single with an accompanying music video that premiered on December 31,2015. It was released to radio on February 5,2016, the song went number one in Israel and has reached the top 10 in Belgium, Canada, and New Zealand as well as the top 20 in Australia and the United States. Swift premiered a 15-second clip of Out of the Woods on Good Morning America on October 13,2014, Swift called Out of the Woods one of her favorite songs on this album because it best represents 1989. She explained that the song is about the fragility and breakable nature of some relationships and this was a relationship where I was kind of living day-to-day wondering where it was going, if it was going to go anywhere, if it was going to end the next day. Out of the Woods was initially released as a single on October 14,2014. On December 22,2015, Good Morning America officially announced the release of a video for the song to premiere during Dick Clarks New Years Rockin Eve. Out of the Woods also serves as the official single from 1989. Out of the Woods is a pop and synthpop song, the track was written by Swift and Antonoff and is the first song that Swift has written to an existing track. Antonoff sent a version of the song without the vocals or lyrics to Swift. Speculation as to whom the song is about is rampant, the bridge section of the song references the snowmobile incident that Swift and her former boyfriend, One Directions Harry Styles, were reported to be involved in during their relationship. Max Martin produced Swifts vocals for the song and it is written in the key of C Major with Swifts vocals spanning two octaves, between G3 and E5 and runs three minutes and fifty-five seconds, at 92 bpm. Featuring heavy synths and percussion, Antonoff described that the song is given an arrangement that combines both 1980s and modern elements and he said, I just chopped this piece of my voice singing and started looping it over and over. Then I started banging on some drums I had in the room and stomping on the floor, hit the brakes too soon could mean the literal sense of, we got in an accident and we had to deal with the aftermath. But also, the relationship ended sooner than it shouldve because there was a lot of fear involved, I dont think its ever going to be easy for me to find love and block out all those screaming voices. Billboard gave the four and half stars out of five

22.
Country music
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Country music is a genre of United States popular music that originated in the southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from the genre of United States, such as folk music. Blues modes have been used throughout its recorded history. The term country music is used today to many styles and subgenres. In 2009 country music was the most listened to rush hour radio genre during the evening commute, immigrants to the Southern Appalachian Mountains of North America brought the music and instruments of Europe and Africa along with them for nearly 300 years. Country music was introduced to the world as a Southern phenomenon, Bristol, Tennessee, has been formally recognized by the U. S. Congress as the Birthplace of Country Music, based on the historic Bristol recording sessions of 1927. Since 2014, the city has been home to the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, historians have also noted the influence of the less-known Johnson City sessions of 1928 and 1929, and the Knoxville sessions of 1929 and 1930. Prior to these, pioneer settlers, in the Great Smoky Mountains region, had developed a musical heritage. The first generation emerged in the early 1920s, with Atlantas music scene playing a role in launching countrys earliest recording artists. Okeh Records began issuing hillbilly music records by Fiddlin John Carson as early as 1923, followed by Columbia Records in 1924, many hillbilly musicians, such as Cliff Carlisle, recorded blues songs throughout the 1920s. The most important was the Grand Ole Opry, aired starting in 1925 by WSM in Nashville, during the 1930s and 1940s, cowboy songs, or Western music, which had been recorded since the 1920s, were popularized by films made in Hollywood. Bob Wills was another musician from the Lower Great Plains who had become very popular as the leader of a hot string band. His mix of country and jazz, which started out as dance hall music, Wills was one of the first country musicians known to have added an electric guitar to his band, in 1938. Country musicians began recording boogie in 1939, shortly after it had played at Carnegie Hall. Gospel music remained a component of country music. It became known as honky tonk, and had its roots in Western swing and the music of Mexico. By the early 1950s a blend of Western swing, country boogie, rockabilly was most popular with country fans in the 1950s, and 1956 could be called the year of rockabilly in country music. Beginning in the mid-1950s, and reaching its peak during the early 1960s, the late 1960s in American music produced a unique blend as a result of traditionalist backlash within separate genres

23.
Synthesizer
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A synthesizer is an electronic musical instrument that generates electric signals that are converted to sound through instrument amplifiers and loudspeakers or headphones. Synthesizers may either imitate instruments like piano, Hammond organ, flute, vocals, natural sounds like ocean waves, etc. or generate new electronic timbres. Synthesizers without built-in controllers are called sound modules, and are controlled via USB, MIDI or CV/gate using a controller device. Synthesizers use various methods to generate electronic signals, synthesizers were first used in pop music in the 1960s. In the 1970s, synths were used in disco, especially in the late 1970s, in the 1980s, the invention of the relatively inexpensive, mass market Yamaha DX7 synth made synthesizers widely available. 1980s pop and dance music often made use of synthesizers. In the 2010s, synthesizers are used in genres of pop, rock. Contemporary classical music composers from the 20th and 21st century write compositions for synthesizer, the beginnings of the synthesizer are difficult to trace, as it is difficult to draw a distinction between synthesizers and some early electric or electronic musical instruments. One of the earliest electric musical instruments, the telegraph, was invented in 1876 by American electrical engineer Elisha Gray. He accidentally discovered the sound generation from a self-vibrating electromechanical circuit and this musical telegraph used steel reeds with oscillations created by electromagnets transmitted over a telegraph line. Gray also built a simple loudspeaker device into later models, consisting of a diaphragm in a magnetic field. This instrument was a remote electromechanical musical instrument that used telegraphy, though it lacked an arbitrary sound-synthesis function, some have erroneously called it the first synthesizer. In 1897, Thaddeus Cahill invented the Teleharmonium, which used dynamos, and was capable of additive synthesis like the Hammond organ, however, Cahills business was unsuccessful for various reasons, and similar but more compact instruments were subsequently developed, such as electronic and tonewheel organs. In 1906, American engineer, Lee De Forest ushered in the electronics age and he invented the first amplifying vacuum tube, called the Audion tube. This led to new entertainment technologies, including radio and sound films, ondes Martenot and Trautonium were continuously developed for several decades, finally developing qualities similar to later synthesizers. In the 1920s, Arseny Avraamov developed various systems of graphic sonic art, in 1938, USSR engineer Yevgeny Murzin designed a compositional tool called ANS, one of the earliest real-time additive synthesizers using optoelectronics. The earliest polyphonic synthesizers were developed in Germany and the United States, during the three years that Hammond manufactured this model,1,069 units were shipped, but production was discontinued at the start of World War II. Both instruments were the forerunners of the electronic organs and polyphonic synthesizers

24.
Music journalism
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Music journalism is media criticism and reporting about popular music topics, including pop music, rock music, and related styles. Journalists began writing music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on what is now thought of as classical music. An influential English 19th-century music critic, for example, was James William Davison of The Times, the composer Hector Berlioz also wrote reviews and criticisms for the Paris press of the 1830s and 1840s. The 1840s could be considered a point, in that music critics after the 1840s generally were not also practicing musicians. However, counterexamples include Alfred Brendel, Charles Rosen, Paul Hindemith, in the early 1980s, a decline in the quantity of classical criticism began occurring when classical-music criticism visibly started to disappear from the media. Also of concern in classical music journalism was how American reviewers can write about ethnic and folk music from other than their own, such as Indian ragas. The performers be treated as human beings and their music be treated as human activity rather than a mystical or mysterious phenomenon, the review should show an understanding of the musics cultural backgrounds and intentions. A key finding in a 2005 study of journalism in America was that the profile of the average classical music critic is a white, 52-year old male. Demographics indicated that the group was 74% male, 92% white, davis, one of the most respected voices of the craft, said he had been forced out after 26 years. Music writers only started treating pop and rock music seriously in 1964 after the breakthrough of the Beatles, one of the early music magazines in Britain, Melody Maker, complained in 1967 about how newspapers and magazines are continually hammering pop music. Melody Maker magazine advocated the new forms of pop music of the late 1960s, by 1999, the quality press was regularly carrying reviews of popular music gigs and albums, which had a key role in keeping pop in the public eye. As more pop music critics began writing, this had the effect of legitimating pop as an art form, as a result, in the world of pop music criticism, there has tended to be a quick turnover. In the realm of music, as in that of classical music. Frank Zappa declared that, Most rock journalism is people who cant write, interviewing people who cant talk, in the 2000s, online music bloggers began to supplement, and to some degree displace, music journalists in print media. In 2006, Martin Edlund of the New York Sun criticized the trend, arguing that while the Internet has democratized music criticism, slate magazine writer Jody Rosen discussed the 2000s-era trends in pop music criticism in his article The Perils of Poptimism. Rosen noted that much of the debate is centered on a perception that rock critics regard rock as normative … the standard state of popular music … to which everything else is compared. At a 2006 pop critic conference, attendees discussed their guilty pop pleasures, reconsidering musicians and genres which rock critics have dismissed as lightweight. Rosen stated that this new paradigm is called popism — or, more evocatively

25.
Billboard (magazine)
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Billboard is an American entertainment media brand owned by the Hollywood Reporter-Billboard Media Group, a division of Eldridge Industries. It publishes pieces involving news, video, opinion, reviews, events and it is also known for its music charts, including the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200, tracking the most popular singles and albums in different genres. It also hosts events, owns a publishing firm, and operates several TV shows, Billboard was founded in 1894 by William Donaldson and James Hennegan as a trade publication for bill posters. Donaldson later acquired Hennegens interest in 1900 for $500, in the 1900s, it covered the entertainment industry, such as circuses, fairs and burlesque shows. It also created a service for travelling entertainers. Billboard began focusing more on the industry as the jukebox, phonograph. Many topics it covered were spun-off into different magazines, including Amusement Business in 1961 to cover outdoor entertainment so that it could focus on music. After Donaldson died in 1925, Billboard was passed down to his children and Hennegans children, until it was sold to investors in 1985. The first issue of Billboard was published in Cincinnati, Ohio, on November 1,1894 by William Donaldson, initially, it covered the advertising and bill posting industry and was called Billboard Advertising. At the time, billboards, posters and paper advertisements placed in public spaces were the means of advertising. Donaldson handled editorial and advertising, while Hennegan, who owned Hennegan Printing Co. managed magazine production, the first issues were just eight pages long. The paper had columns like The Bill Room Gossip and The Indefatigable, a department for agricultural fairs was established in 1896. The title was changed to The Billboard in 1897, after a brief departure over editorial differences, Donaldson purchased Hennegans interest in the business in 1900 for $500, to save it from bankruptcy. That May, Donaldson changed it from a monthly to a paper with a greater emphasis on breaking news. He improved editorial quality and opened new offices in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, London and he also re-focused the magazine on outdoor entertainment like fairs, carnivals, circuses, vaudeville and burlesque shows. A section devoted to circuses was introduced in 1900, followed by more prominent coverage of events in 1901. Billboard also covered topics including regulation, a lack of professionalism, economics and it had a stage gossip column covering the private lives of entertainers, a tent show section covering traveling shows and a sub-section called Freaks to order. According to The Seattle Times, Donaldson also published articles attacking censorship, praising productions exhibiting good taste

26.
Time (magazine)
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Time is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It was founded in 1923 and for decades was dominated by Henry Luce, a European edition is published in London and also covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong, the South Pacific edition, which covers Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, is based in Sydney, Australia. In December 2008, Time discontinued publishing a Canadian advertiser edition, Time has the worlds largest circulation for a weekly news magazine, and has a readership of 26 million,20 million of which are based in the United States. As of 2012, it had a circulation of 3.3 million making it the eleventh most circulated magazine in the United States reception room circuit, as of 2015, its circulation was 3,036,602. Richard Stengel was the editor from May 2006 to October 2013. Nancy Gibbs has been the editor since October 2013. Time magazine was created in 1923 by Briton Hadden and Henry Luce, the two had previously worked together as chairman and managing editor respectively of the Yale Daily News. They first called the proposed magazine Facts and they wanted to emphasize brevity, so that a busy man could read it in an hour. They changed the name to Time and used the slogan Take Time–Its Brief and it set out to tell the news through people, and for many decades the magazines cover depicted a single person. More recently, Time has incorporated People of the Year issues which grew in popularity over the years, notable mentions of them were Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Matej Turk, etc. The first issue of Time was published on March 3,1923, featuring Joseph G. Cannon, the retired Speaker of the House of Representatives, on its cover, a facsimile reprint of Issue No. 1, including all of the articles and advertisements contained in the original, was included with copies of the February 28,1938 issue as a commemoration of the magazines 15th anniversary. The cover price was 15¢ On Haddens death in 1929, Luce became the dominant man at Time, the Intimate History of a Publishing Enterprise 1923–1941. In 1929, Roy Larsen was also named a Time Inc. director, J. P. Morgan retained a certain control through two directorates and a share of stocks, both over Time and Fortune. Other shareholders were Brown Brothers W. A. Harriman & Co. the Intimate History of a Changing Enterprise 1957–1983. According to the September 10,1979 issue of The New York Times, after Time magazine began publishing its weekly issues in March 1923, Roy Larsen was able to increase its circulation by utilizing U. S. radio and movie theaters around the world. It often promoted both Time magazine and U. S. political and corporate interests, Larsen next arranged for a 30-minute radio program, The March of Time, to be broadcast over CBS, beginning on March 6,1931

27.
Rolling Stone
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Rolling Stone is an American biweekly magazine that focuses on popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner, who is still the publisher. It was first known for its coverage and for political reporting by Hunter S. Thompson. In the 1990s, the magazine shifted focus to a readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors. In recent years, it has resumed its traditional mix of content, Rolling Stone magazine was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and Ralph Gleason. To get it off the ground, Wenner borrowed $7,500 from his own family and from the parents of his soon-to-be wife, Jane Schindelheim. The first issue carried a date of November 9,1967. Some authors have attributed the name solely to Dylans hit single, At Gleasons suggestion, Rolling Stone initially identified with and reported the hippie counterculture of the era. In the very first edition, Wenner wrote that Rolling Stone is not just about the music, in the 1970s, Rolling Stone began to make a mark with its political coverage, with the likes of gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson writing for the magazines political section. Thompson first published his most famous work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas within the pages of Rolling Stone, where he remained a contributing editor until his death in 2005. In the 1970s, the magazine also helped launch the careers of prominent authors, including Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Joe Klein, Joe Eszterhas, Patti Smith. It was at point that the magazine ran some of its most famous stories. One interviewer, speaking for a number of his peers, said that he bought his first copy of the magazine upon initial arrival on his college campus. In 1977, the magazine moved its headquarters from San Francisco to New York City, editor Jann Wenner said San Francisco had become a cultural backwater. During the 1980s, the magazine began to shift towards being an entertainment magazine. Music was still a dominant topic, but there was increasing coverage of celebrities in television, films, the magazine also initiated its annual Hot Issue during this time. Rolling Stone was initially known for its coverage and for Thompsons political reporting. In the 1990s, the changed its format to appeal to a younger readership interested in youth-oriented television shows, film actors

28.
Billboard 200
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The Billboard 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States, published weekly by Billboard magazine. It is frequently used to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists, often, a recording act will be remembered by its number ones, those of their albums that outperformed all others during at least one week. The chart is based mostly on sales of albums in the United States, the weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but since July 2015, tracking week begins on Friday and ends on Thursday. A new chart is published the following Tuesday with an issue post-dated to the Saturday of the following week, the charts streaming schedule is also tracked from Friday to Thursday. Example, Friday January 1 – sales tracking week begins Thursday January 7 – sales tracking week ends Tuesday January 12 – new chart published, New product is released to the American market on Fridays. Digital downloads of albums are included in Billboard 200 tabulation. Albums that are not licensed for sale in the United States are not eligible to chart. As of the issue dated April 15,2017, the album on the Billboard 200 is More Life by Drake. Billboard began an album chart in 1945, initially only five positions long, the album chart was not published on a weekly basis, sometimes three to seven weeks passing before it was updated. A biweekly, 15-position Best-Selling Popular Albums chart appeared in 1955, the position count varied anywhere from 10 to 30 albums. The first number-one album on the new weekly list was Belafonte by Harry Belafonte, the chart was renamed to Best-Selling Pop Albums later in 1956, and then to Best-Selling Pop LPs in 1957. Beginning on May 25,1959, Billboard split the ranking into two charts Best-Selling Stereophonic LPs for stereo albums and Best-Selling Monophonic LPs for mono albums and these were renamed to Stereo Action Charts and Mono Action Charts in 1960. In January 1961, they became Action Albums—Stereophonic and Action Albums—Monophonic, three months later, they became Top LPs—Stereo and Top LPs—Monaural. On August 17,1963 the stereo and mono charts were combined into a 150-position chart called Top LPs, on April 1,1967, the chart was expanded to 175 positions, then finally to 200 positions on May 13,1967. In 1960, Billboard began concurrently publishing album charts which ranked sales of older or mid-priced titles and these Essential Inventory charts were divided by stereo and mono albums, and featured titles that had already appeared on the main stereo and mono album charts. In January 1961, the Action Charts became Action Albums—Monophonic, Albums appeared on either chart for up to nine weeks, then were moved to an Essential Inventory list of approximately 200 titles, with no numerical ranking. This list continued to be published until the consolidated Top LPs chart debuted in 1963, in 1982, Billboard began publishing a Midline Albums chart which ranked older or mid-priced titles. The chart held 50 positions and was published on a bi-weekly basis, on May 25,1991, Billboard premiered the Top Pop Catalog Albums chart

29.
Billboard Hot 100
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The Billboard Hot 100 is the music industry standard record chart in the United States for singles, published weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on sales, radio play and online streaming, the weekly sales period was originally Monday to Sunday, when Nielsen started tracking sales in 1991, but was changed to Friday to Thursday in July 2015. Radio airplay, which, unlike sales figures and streaming data, is available on a real-time basis. A new chart is compiled and officially released to the public by Billboard on Tuesdays, as of the issue for the week ending on April 15,2017, the Hot 100 has had 1,061 different number one hits. The current number one song is Shape of You by Ed Sheeran, prior to 1955, Billboard did not have a unified, all-encompassing popularity chart, instead measuring songs by individual metrics. At the start of the era in 1955, three such charts existed, Best Sellers in Stores was the first Billboard chart, established in 1936. This chart ranked the biggest selling singles in retail stores, as reported by merchants surveyed throughout the country, Most Played by Jockeys was Billboards original airplay chart. It ranked the most played songs on United States radio stations, as reported by radio disc jockeys, Most Played in Jukeboxes ranked the most played songs in jukeboxes across the United States. On the week ending November 12,1955, Billboard published The Top 100 for the first time, the Top 100 combined all aspects of a singles performance, based on a point system that typically gave sales more weight than radio airplay. The Best Sellers In Stores, Most Played by Jockeys and Most Played in Jukeboxes charts continued to be published concurrently with the new Top 100 chart. The week ending July 28,1958 was the publication of the Most Played By Jockeys and Top 100 charts. On August 4,1958, Billboard premiered one main all-genre singles chart, the Hot 100 quickly became the industry standard and Billboard discontinued the Best Sellers In Stores chart on October 13,1958. The Billboard Hot 100 is still the standard by which a songs popularity is measured in the United States, the Hot 100 is ranked by radio airplay audience impressions as measured by Nielsen BDS, sales data compiled by Nielsen Soundscan and streaming activity provided by online music sources. There are several component charts that contribute to the calculation of the Hot 100. Charts are ranked by number of gross audience impressions, computed by cross-referencing exact times of radio airplay with Arbitron listener data. Hot Singles Sales, the top selling singles compiled from a sample of retail store, mass merchant and internet sales reports collected, compiled. The chart is released weekly and measures sales of commercial singles. With the decline in sales of singles in the US

30.
Recording Industry Association of America
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The Recording Industry Association of America is a continental North and South American trade organization that represents the recording industry in the United States. Its members consist of record labels and distributors, which the RIAA says create, the RIAA headquarters is in Washington, D. C. The RIAA was formed in 1952 and its original mission was to administer recording copyright fees and problems, work with trade unions, and do research relating to the record industry and government regulations. Early RIAA standards included the RIAA equalization curve, the format of the record groove and the dimensions of 33 1/3 rpm,45 rpm. Since 2001, the RIAA has spent $2 to $6 million each year on lobbying in the United States, the RIAA also participates in the collective rights management of sound recordings, and it is responsible for certifying Gold and Platinum albums and singles in the United States. Cary Sherman has been the RIAAs chairman and CEO since 2011, Sherman joined the RIAA as its general counsel in 1997 and became president of the board of directors in 2001, serving in that position until being made chairman and CEO. Mitch Glazier has been the RIAAs senior executive vice president since 2011 and he served as executive vice president for public policy and industry relations from 2000 to 2011. The past RIAA chairman and CEO is Mitch Bainwol, who served from 2003 to 2011 and he left in 2011 to become president and CEO of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. The board of directors consists of 26 members of the board, the RIAA operates an award program for albums that sell a large number of copies. The program originally began in 1958, with a Gold Award for singles, the criterion was changed in 1975 to the number of copies sold, with albums selling 500,000 copies awarded the Gold Award. In 1976, a Platinum Award was added for one million sales, the awards are open to both RIAA members and non-members. Since 2000, the RIAA also operates a program for Latin music sales. Currently, a Disco De Oro is awarded for 30,000 units, the RIAA defines Latin music as a type of release with 51% or more of its content recorded in Spanish. In 2006, digital ringtones were added to branch of certification. In the same year, the RIAA introduced the Latin Digital Award for digital recordings in Spanish and this release format includes DVD and VHS releases, and certain live albums and compilation albums. The certification criteria is different from other styles. Gold,50,000 Platinum,100,000 Multi-Platinum,200,000 copies The RIAA opposes unauthorized sharing of its music, studies conducted since the association began its campaign against peer-to-peer file-sharing have concluded that losses incurred per download range from negligible to moderate. The association has commenced high-profile lawsuits against file sharing service providers and it has also commenced a series of lawsuits against individuals suspected of file sharing, notably college students and parents of file sharing children

31.
Fearless (Taylor Swift album)
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Fearless is the second studio album by the American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. The album was released on November 11,2008, by Big Machine Records, as with her first album, Taylor Swift, Swift wrote or co-wrote all thirteen tracks on Fearless. Most of the songs were written as the singer promoted her first album as the act for numerous country artists. Due to the unavailability of collaborators on the road, eight songs were written by Swift, other songs were co-written with Liz Rose, Hillary Lindsey, Colbie Caillat and John Rich. Swift also made her debut as a producer, co-producing all songs on the album with Nathan Chapman. Five singles were released from Fearless, the first single, Love Story, sold more than 6.5 million copies worldwide. It was a hit that became one of the best-selling singles of all time internationally and was once the best-selling country song of all time. The succeeding single, White Horse, also performed well in the US and you Belong with Me was an international success, becoming Swifts second best-selling single and her highest position on the US Billboard Hot 100 at the time. Fifteen and Fearless followed with both achieving a platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, Fearless is an international breakthrough and huge commercial success for Swift. It debuted at No.1 in the United States, and later became the album of 2009. It gave Swift,18 at the time, the distinction of being the youngest artist in history to have the years best-selling album and it has sold over 7 million copies in the United States, becoming the second-biggest-selling album in the last six years. Fearless topped the charts in Canada and New Zealand and achieved status in six countries. In all, Fearless has sold more than 8.68 million copies worldwide, prior to stardom, Swift received a publishing contract with Sony/ATV Music. When later signed to Big Machine Records, Swift compiled her Taylor Swift album of material written during her publishing contract and she said, Ive been very selfish about my songs. I had this dream of this coming out for so many years now that I just stockpiled. Im so happy that I did because now we have an album full of songs and a third album full of songs. However, when embarking on her first and second tour as opening act for Rascal Flatts and George Strait, respectively, Ive written a lot of songs by myself lately, especially since Ive been alone so much on the road, she said. I do love writing on the road – I usually write at the concert venue, ill find a quiet place in some room at the venue, like the locker room

32.
Heartland rock
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Heartland rock is a genre of rock music that is exemplified by the commercial success of singer-songwriters Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, Tom Petty, and John Mellencamp. It is also associated with a number of music artists including Steve Earle and Joe Ely. The genre developed in the 1970s and reached its peak in the 1980s. In the 1990s, many established acts faded and the genre began to fragment, the term heartland rock was not coined to describe a clear genre until the 1980s. In terms of style it often uses straightforward rock and roll, sometimes with elements of Americana, lyrics are often presented in a style that is raspy and unpolished, adding a sense of authenticity. Verses often outline narrative stories, particularly of people undergoing hard times and choruses are often anthemic in tone and it is associated with rural and blue-collar values, particularly those of the predominantly white working-class regions of the Midwest and the rust belt. Many major heartland rock artists began their careers in the 1960s, as with Bob Seger, or the 1970s, as with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, Springsteen would be the first artist to bring heartland rock to US and international attention, and its most commercially successful exponent. While Springsteen struggled for three years with legal disputes, other artists in a similar vein came to the fore and these included Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Eddie Money, and fellow Jersey Shore residents Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. A number of music artists like Steve Earle and Joe Ely also became associated with the genre. The first significant female artist in the genre was Melissa Etheridge, whose self-titled debut album issued in 1988 drew critical comparisons with Springsteen and their works have become more personal and experimental and no longer fitted easily into a single genre. His 2008 hit All Summer Long was inspired by Segers classic Night Moves as well as Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd, american indie rock bands the Killers and the Gaslight Anthem have been associated with the genre. Americana music Country rock Jersey Shore sound Roots rock Southern rock

33.
Dubstep
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Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London, England. It emerged in the late 1990s as a development within a lineage of related styles such as 2-step garage, dub, techno, drum and bass, broken beat, jungle, and reggae. In the United Kingdom the origins of the genre can be traced back to the growth of the Jamaican sound system party scene in the early 1980s, the music generally features sparse, syncopated drum and percussion patterns with bass lines that contain prominent sub bass frequencies. The earliest dubstep releases date back to 1998, and were featured as B-sides of 2-step garage single releases. These tracks were darker, more experimental remixes with less emphasis on vocals, a very early supporter of the sound was BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who started playing it from 2003 onwards. In 2004, the last year of his show, his listeners voted Distance, Digital Mystikz, simultaneously, the genre was receiving extensive coverage in music magazines such as The Wire and online publications such as Pitchfork, with a regular feature entitled The Month In, Grime/Dubstep. Interest in dubstep grew significantly after BBC Radio 1 DJ Mary Anne Hobbs started championing the genre, towards the end of the 2000s and into the early 2010s, the genre started to become more commercially successful in the UK, with more singles and remixes entering the music charts. Music journalists and critics noticed a dubstep influence in several pop artists work. The music website Allmusic has described Dubsteps overall sound as tightly coiled productions with overwhelming bass lines and reverberant drum patterns, clipped samples, and occasional vocals. According to Simon Reynolds, Dubsteps constituents originally came from different points in the 1989—99 UK lineage, bleep n bass, jungle, techstep, Photek-style neurofunk, speed garage,2 step. Reynolds comments that the traces of pre-existing styles worked through their intrinsic sonic effects but also as signifiers, Dubsteps early roots are in the more experimental releases of UK garage producers, seeking to incorporate elements of drum and bass into the South London-based 2-step garage sound. These experiments often ended up on the B-side of a label or commercial garage release. Similar to a vocal garage hybrid – grime – the genres feel is commonly dark, tracks frequently use a minor key, other distinguishing features often found are the use of samples, a propulsive, sparse rhythm, and an almost omnipresent sub-bass. Some dubstep artists have incorporated a variety of outside influences. Dubstep rhythms are usually syncopated, and often shuffled or incorporating tuplets, the tempo is nearly always in the range of 138–142 beats per minute, with a clap or snare usually inserted every third beat in a bar. In its early stages, dubstep was often more percussive, with influences from 2‑step drum patterns. A lot of producers were experimenting with tribal drum samples, such as Loefahs early release Truly Dread. One characteristic of certain strands of dubstep is the bass, often referred to as the wub

34.
The Red Tour
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The Red Tour was the third concert tour by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. Launched in support of Swifts fourth studio album, Red, the tour began on March 13,2013 in Omaha, Nebraska and this was the first tour by Swift to extend to Muslim countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia. During a radio interview with WRVW, Swift mentioned that Its nothing like any other tour before, Swift told Billboard, Of course, you know the tour will be a big representation of this record. Im so excited to see what songs the fans like the most and we always see which songs are really the passionate songs and the ones the fans are freaking out over the most, and those are the ones that are definitely in the set list. Swift used Tom Pettys American Girl as her song on her previous tour. She sang a cover of The Lumineerss Ho Hey nightly, intertwined with her own Stay Stay Stay, the following set list is representative of the show on March 27,2013. It is not representative of all concerts for the duration of the tour, Swift became the first solo female artist in 20 years to headline a national stadium tour through Australia, with the last being Madonnas The Girlie Show World Tour in 1993

35.
Gawker
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Gawker was an American blog founded by Nick Denton and Elizabeth Spiers and based in New York City, under parent company Univision Communications focusing on celebrities and the media industry. The blog promoted itself as the source for daily Manhattan media news, according to third-party web analytics provider SimilarWeb, the site had over 23 million visits per month as of 2015. Founded in 2003, Gawker was the blog for Dentons Gawker Media. Gawker Media also managed other blogs such as Jezebel, io9, Deadspin, Gawker came under scrutiny for posting videos, communications and other content that violated copyrights or the privacy of its owners, or was illegally obtained. In particular, Gawkers publication of a sex tape featuring Hulk Hogan resulted in a million legal judgment against the company. On June 10,2016, Gawker announced it would be filing for bankruptcy as a result of the monetary judgment against the company related to the Hulk Hogan sex tape lawsuit. On August 18,2016, Gawker Media announced that its flagship blog, gawker. com, the other websites in the Gawker Media family were unaffected by its shut down. Founder Nick Denton created the final post on August 22,2016. Gawker was founded by journalist Nick Denton in 2002, after he left the Financial Times and it was originally edited by Elizabeth Spiers. Gawkers official launch was in December 2002, when Spiers left Gawker, she was replaced by Choire Sicha, a former art dealer. Sicha was employed in this position from after her departure until August 2004, at which point he was replaced by Jessica Coen, Sicha left for The New York Observer six months after his promotion. In July 2006, Oxfelds contract was not renewed, and Alex Balk was installed, Chris Mohney, formerly of Gridskipper, Gawker Medias travel blog, was hired for the newly created position of managing editor. On September 28,2006, Coen announced in a post on Gawker that she would be leaving the site to become deputy editor at Vanity Fair. Balk shared responsibility for the Gawker site with co-editor Emily Gould, associate editor Maggie Shnayerson also began writing for the site, she replaced Doree Shafrir, who left in September 2007 for The New York Observer. In February 2007, Sicha returned from his position at the The New York Observer, on September 21,2007, Gawker announced that Balk would depart to edit Radar magazines website, he would be replaced by Alex Pareene of Wonkette. In 2008, weekend editor Ian Spiegelman quit Gawker because Denton fired his friend Sheila McClear without cause, on October 3,2008, Gawker announced that 19 staff members were being laid off in response to expected economic hardships in the coming months. Most came from sites with low ad revenue, some members and staff writers complained that owner Nick Denton was looking to sell out all of the Gawker sites while they were still profitable. In December 2009, Denton was nominated for Media Entrepreneur of the Decade by Adweek, brian Morrissey of Adweek said Gawker remains the epitome of blogging, provocative, brash, and wildly entertaining

36.
The New York Times
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The New York Times is an American daily newspaper, founded and continuously published in New York City since September 18,1851, by The New York Times Company. The New York Times has won 119 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper, the papers print version in 2013 had the second-largest circulation, behind The Wall Street Journal, and the largest circulation among the metropolitan newspapers in the US. The New York Times is ranked 18th in the world by circulation, following industry trends, its weekday circulation had fallen in 2009 to fewer than one million. Nicknamed The Gray Lady, The New York Times has long been regarded within the industry as a newspaper of record. The New York Times international version, formerly the International Herald Tribune, is now called the New York Times International Edition, the papers motto, All the News Thats Fit to Print, appears in the upper left-hand corner of the front page. On Sunday, The New York Times is supplemented by the Sunday Review, The New York Times Book Review, The New York Times Magazine and T, some other early investors of the company were Edwin B. Morgan and Edward B. We do not believe that everything in Society is either right or exactly wrong, —what is good we desire to preserve and improve, —what is evil, to exterminate. In 1852, the started a western division, The Times of California that arrived whenever a mail boat got to California. However, when local California newspapers came into prominence, the effort failed, the newspaper shortened its name to The New-York Times in 1857. It dropped the hyphen in the city name in the 1890s, One of the earliest public controversies it was involved with was the Mortara Affair, the subject of twenty editorials it published alone. At Newspaper Row, across from City Hall, Henry Raymond, owner and editor of The New York Times, averted the rioters with Gatling guns, in 1869, Raymond died, and George Jones took over as publisher. Tweed offered The New York Times five million dollars to not publish the story, in the 1880s, The New York Times transitioned gradually from editorially supporting Republican Party candidates to becoming more politically independent and analytical. In 1884, the paper supported Democrat Grover Cleveland in his first presidential campaign, while this move cost The New York Times readership among its more progressive and Republican readers, the paper eventually regained most of its lost ground within a few years. However, the newspaper was financially crippled by the Panic of 1893, the paper slowly acquired a reputation for even-handedness and accurate modern reporting, especially by the 1890s under the guidance of Ochs. Under Ochs guidance, continuing and expanding upon the Henry Raymond tradition, The New York Times achieved international scope, circulation, in 1910, the first air delivery of The New York Times to Philadelphia began. The New York Times first trans-Atlantic delivery by air to London occurred in 1919 by dirigible, airplane Edition was sent by plane to Chicago so it could be in the hands of Republican convention delegates by evening. In the 1940s, the extended its breadth and reach. The crossword began appearing regularly in 1942, and the section in 1946

37.
Los Angeles
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Los Angeles, officially the City of Los Angeles and often known by its initials L. A. is the cultural, financial, and commercial center of Southern California. With a census-estimated 2015 population of 3,971,883, it is the second-most populous city in the United States, Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated county in the United States. The citys inhabitants are referred to as Angelenos, historically home to the Chumash and Tongva, Los Angeles was claimed by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo for Spain in 1542 along with the rest of what would become Alta California. The city was founded on September 4,1781, by Spanish governor Felipe de Neve. It became a part of Mexico in 1821 following the Mexican War of Independence, in 1848, at the end of the Mexican–American War, Los Angeles and the rest of California were purchased as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, thereby becoming part of the United States. Los Angeles was incorporated as a municipality on April 4,1850, the discovery of oil in the 1890s brought rapid growth to the city. The completion of the Los Angeles Aqueduct in 1913, delivering water from Eastern California, nicknamed the City of Angels, Los Angeles is known for its Mediterranean climate, ethnic diversity, and sprawling metropolis. Los Angeles also has an economy in culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine. A global city, it has been ranked 6th in the Global Cities Index, the city is home to renowned institutions covering a broad range of professional and cultural fields, and is one of the most substantial economic engines within the United States. The Los Angeles combined statistical area has a gross metropolitan product of $831 billion, making it the third-largest in the world, after the Greater Tokyo and New York metropolitan areas. The city has hosted the Summer Olympic Games in 1932 and 1984 and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and thus become the second city after London to have hosted the Games three times. The Los Angeles area also hosted the 1994 FIFA mens World Cup final match as well as the 1999 FIFA womens World Cup final match, the mens event was watched on television by over 700 million people worldwide. The Los Angeles coastal area was first settled by the Tongva, a Gabrielino settlement in the area was called iyáangẚ, meaning poison oak place. Gaspar de Portolà and Franciscan missionary Juan Crespí, reached the present site of Los Angeles on August 2,1769, in 1771, Franciscan friar Junípero Serra directed the building of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, the first mission in the area. The Queen of the Angels is an honorific of the Virgin Mary, two-thirds of the settlers were mestizo or mulatto with a mixture of African, indigenous and European ancestry. The settlement remained a small town for decades, but by 1820. Today, the pueblo is commemorated in the district of Los Angeles Pueblo Plaza and Olvera Street. New Spain achieved its independence from the Spanish Empire in 1821, during Mexican rule, Governor Pío Pico made Los Angeles Alta Californias regional capital

Red is the fourth studio album by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift. It was released on October 22, 2012, by Big …

Swift spent a total of 24 weeks atop the ''Billboard'' 200 throughout her career, tying her with Adele (with her album 21) as the woman with the most weeks at No. 1 since Nielsen SoundScan began tabulating the Billboard 200 in May 1991.

With Red spending its sixth week atop Billboard 200, Swift became the first artist since The Beatles 43 years earlier to log six weeks atop Billboard 200 with three consecutive studio albums.